JULY IX. (continued 2)

One of the commands given to Veronica, after her espousals, was that she should increase her fasting; and about a year after that event, she received a direct injunction from God to fast for three whole years upon nothing but bread and water. But Almighty God, wishing at the same time to put her obedience to her superiors to the test, caused them all to refuse her their permission, without which she could not put the Divine command in practice. And, although He continued to repeat His command and even to reproach her for not fulfilling it; and although her stomach rejected every other food but bread, yet her superiors obstinately refused to accede to her petition. “I was full of joy,” she says, “because in this way I suffered much, but I felt that the flesh could bear no more.” At length, after she had undergone the severest torments, from the refusal of her superiors, the weakness of her body, and her sorrow of mind, at not being able to comply with the will of God, from March to September, God was pleased to support her by milk miraculously supplied in the same manner as is related by the Bollandists of the holy virgins, Lidwige, or Lidwina, in Holland, and Geltrude in Belgium.

The most severe trial to which she was exposed, was from desolation and sadness of spirit, and from the bitter malice and fierce assaults of the devil against her purity, during 1696, the year after her mystic espousals.

Under the 17th of October, we read as follows: “Amongst my other tribulations came this also. Whilst I was in prayer, there came upon me such, and so many evil thoughts of impurity and of grievous sins, and they threw me into such anguish, that at one time they covered me with perspiration, and at another made me freeze, with an internal agony, which confused and disturbed my soul. I did not wish to disquiet myself, nor to give myself trouble and pain, but I could not help it; I felt myself so oppressed and sunk in these filthy thoughts, and my mind so completely obscured, that I could do nothing. The demon tempted me, and I seemed to hear a dreadful voice, which continually repeated, ‘See, these are the fruits of praying for sinners. All their sins are crowding upon thy head. Do good now, if thou canst.’ As he spoke these words, the devil seemed to make merry and rejoice. O God, what torment it gave me! As well as I could, I begged of God the salvation of souls, and I said, ‘My sovereign good, Spouse of my soul, I do not offend Thee in will, and therefore I detest and abhor every wicked thought; and now and for ever, I tell Thee, that my will does not wish to entertain them. Rather death, and a thousand deaths, than that I should ever consent to a single thought that can offend Thee.’ As I said this, though with great difficulty, the devil tormented me by suggesting worse thoughts than ever, and telling me that no hope was left me. I replied, ‘Liar that thou art, I will not yield to thy falsehoods. Jesus will I love, Jesus will I serve; I have no other good but Jesus.’ In this struggle I remained for several hours, always with desolation, dryness, and temptations. God be blessed for all!” The like temptations and assaults, both from her flesh and from the devil, are described under December of the same year, but she repeated with the glorious martyr St. Cecily, fiat cor meum et corpus meum immaculatum ut non confundar, “Let my heart and body be immaculate, that I may not be confounded.” On Christmas eve she made an incision upon her heart in the form of a cross, with a pen-knife. With the blood, which issued from it, she wrote a fervent protestation of love, and a dedication of her will to her infant Saviour. Four other writings of the same kind, made during the course of that and the following year, 1697, all breathe the same feelings of consecration of her will to Jesus, and especially of ardent charity and zeal for the salvation of her neighbors, whose mediatrix she had promised to be. In one of them, she writes, “I intend at this moment to confirm all the protestations which I have made with my own blood. Lo! I am ready to give my life and blood for the conversion of sinners, and the confirmation of the Holy Faith. O my God! with your heart, with your love, I make this invitation. O souls redeemed with the blood of Jesus, I speak to you; O sinners, come all to the heart of Jesus, to the fountain, to the boundless sea of His love. Come, all of you, men and women, come all! leave sin; come to Jesus!” Her loving spouse rewarded her constancy and love.

On Good Friday, the 5th of April, 1697, she received those rich pledges of love which were vouchsafed to the seraphic St. Francis, St. Catharine, and other saints; for Our Lord, after having previously foretold these graces, and after displaying his mercies in other ways, to her, was pleased to imprint upon her hands and feet, the stigmata or wounds of his most sacred passion. These wounds were afterwards renewed upon several other occasions, and their reality was made known to many persons. For the Tribunal of the Holy Office at Rome, having received information thereof, ordered the bishop of the city to make an inquiry into the truth of the report. He repaired to the grate of the convent, with several other ecclesiastics, who severally saw the wounds which her blessed Spouse had made. Those in the hands and feet, as Florida Ceoli and other sisters attest, were on the upper side round, and about the size of a farthing, but less on the under side, deep and red when open, and covered with a thin cicatrix or crust, when closed. The wound in the left side, above the left breast, was between four and five fingers in length, and about one finger broad in the middle, growing thinner towards the two extremities, exactly like the wound of a lance. Veronica was so alarmed at the thought of undergoing these examinations so dreadful to her virginal modesty, that she told sister Florida Ceoli, in confidence, she should have died of confusion, if God had not deprived her of her senses, during them. And her profound humility suggested to her to beg earnestly of her beloved Saviour to leave her the pain, but hide the marks of these wounds from the eyes of the world, as he had done to St. Catharine of Siena, and other saints; but he ordered her to tell her confessor, that these wounds were to remain, that by the rigorous investigations of the Congregation of the Holy Office, it might be known that they had been imprinted by His divine hand; and that for this purpose, they were to remain visible for three years. So in effect it happened; for after three years, on the 5th of April, 1700, the wounds closed, but not until it had been proved to many that they were indeed the work of divine love. But, although they were closed to the eyes of others, it is attested by several witnesses, that the pain still continued, and that they were renewed after that date upon the greater festivals of the church, the feasts of St. Francis and of his stigmata, and as often as her superiors commanded. She herself mentions their being renewed in 1703, three years after their closing; and her confessor, Father Ranier Guelfi, as late as holy Saturday, the 19th of April, 1726, having been informed by her, that Jesus had renewed her wounds twice upon that same day, commanded her to pray that they might be renewed for the third time. She obeyed, and after remaining in ecstasy at his feet for some time, told him that she had obtained the grace. To his astonishment he beheld the wounds open, and blood issuing from them. To have additional witnesses, he pretended to disbelieve her, and ordered her to show them to two of her companions, who both saw them open and covered with blood, as they testify in the process. Besides the testimony of these and the many others, both ecclesiastics and nuns, who saw these wounds, the reality of their existence was proved by the fact that the most diligent endeavors of surgeons to cure them served only to inflame them still more. But the most undoubted proof is, that she was able in spite of them, to live and perform her duties during a space of thirty years; especially when we reflect that the physician and surgeon, who inspected her body, after her death, agreed that the wound in her left side was enough, at any instant, to have caused her death, so that they considered her very continuance in life a miracle.

Veronica foretold that twenty-four marks would be found engraven upon her heart; and, by the order of her confessor, she described the exact form and disposition of them, by cutting them out in red and white paper; and after her death, they were found to correspond in every particular with the account and picture which she had made of them. They were as follows:—a Latin cross, with a C in the top of the upright piece; the centre of the transverse an F; in the right point of the transverse a V; and in the left an O. Above the cross was, on one side, a crown of thorns; on the left of which was a banner upon a staff, which passed transversely over the cross, and the flag of the banner was divided into two tongues, on the upper of which was a large I, and on the lower an m in running hand. At the top of the banner was a flame, and, lower down, a hammer, a pair of pincers, a lance, and a reed with a sponge represented upon the top. On the right of the cross, beginning from above, was a small garment to represent the seamless vest of Our Lord, another flame, a chalice, two wounds, a column, three nails, a scourge, and seven swords; with the letters P.P.V. on other parts of the heart. All these marks were exactly described by her upon paper, which being compared with her heart, soon after death, were found to agree in every particular. Her confessor attests that the meaning of the above letters and emblems is:—The seven swords are the seven dolors of Mary; the banner, the ensign of her victories over the Devil, the world and herself; the two letters, I (J) and m, Jesus and Mary; C, Charity; F, Faith and Fidelity to God; O, Obedience; the two VV, Humility and the Will of God (Umiltà, and Volontà di Dio), P P, Patience and Suffering (Patire); the two flames, the love of God and her neighbor.

But we have now reached the point towards which all her aspirations were directed; the happy moment when she was to be united to that Spouse, towards whom her soul had hastened, as the thirsty hart flieth to the fountains of living waters. She endured, as she had foretold, in this her last stage of more than mortal agony and bitterness, a three-fold purgatory; first, in the persecutions and harshness of men, on the part of her physicians, and those who attended her, then on the part of the devil, who tempted her to despair; and, lastly, from holy obedience; for, although she had so fervently longed for the moment wherein she was to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, it had been made known to her that she was not to die, without the command of her confessor; that so the obedience, which had been so perfect in life, might be crowned even on earth, by opening for her the gate of heavenly bliss. And, as in her burning charity, and her eager desire and incomparable endurance of suffering, as well as in the pains of His blessed passion, she had so closely copied our Lord, so it pleased Him to make the days of her last illness of the same number as the years of His sojourn in this vale of tears; and on the thirty-third day, to close her life by an agony of three hours, like to his own upon the cross. As she lay motionless and tranquil, her confessor, perceiving that her life was drawing near its term, said, “Be glad of heart, sister Veronica, what you have so much longed for, is near at hand.” As she heard these words, she gave a sign of her unspeakable joy, and then turned and fastened her eyes upon him. He began to recite the “Recommendation of a Departing Soul,” and suggest acts of virtue and resignation, without being able to understand why she looked at him with so fixed an eye. At length, enlightened by Almighty God, he recollected that she had told him that she would not wish to die, save with the leave of her superiors, and through holy obedience, which permission she now craved by the fixed and earnest eye wherewith she regarded him. Animated, therefore, with a lively faith in God, he approached her and said, “Sister Veronica, since it is the will of God that you should now go to enjoy Him, and since it is the pleasure of His Divine Majesty, that for your departure, the leave of His minister should also be granted,—I now give it to you.” Scarcely were these words uttered, than she bent her eyes in token of submission; then turning towards her spiritual daughters, as if to give them her last blessing, she bowed her head, and yielded up her soul, in the peace of the Lord, on Friday, the 9th of July, 1727, in the sixty-seventh year of her age, and the fiftieth of her religious profession.

Of her perfection in the discharge of all the duties of her state of life,—of her faith, hope, and love of God and her neighbor,—of her meekness and humility, which she practised in the most heroic degree,—it is unnecessary here to say more, than that in them she was an exact copy of that virtue which her loving Spouse displayed in His life amongst men. Even upon earth, her sanctity was made manifest by the accomplishment of the events which she had foretold, and by the miracles that she performed; and since her death, the most wonderful favors have been obtained by her intercession. From the many that are recorded in the acts of her beatification, we select only two. The first is that of her confidential companion and friend, sister Mary Magdalen Boscaini, who, in the course of the years 1729-30, was attacked by such a complication of disorders, that she could neither taste food, nor lie down, without considerable difficulty; she was subject to frequent fainting-fits and vomitings, and remained in this state for eleven months, being declared by her physicians to have reached an advanced stage of consumption. At last, on the vigil of St. Matthias, in 1730, eleven months since the beginning of her illness, her confessor exhorted her to place a firm reliance upon Veronica, under whom she had passed her novitiate; and when he had excited her confidence and hope, he gave her to drink some water, in which a relic of the saint had been. She drank it, and instantly sprang out of bed, and ran to see one of her sisters, who was also sick; and afterwards to meet the physician at the door, who was coming to make his usual visit. He carefully examined her; and, after feeling her pulse, pronounced it to be a miracle, as the effect proved, for she lived twelve years longer,—when a second illness attacked her, from which she recovered, in like manner, by the intercession of Veronica; and so lived for twenty-two years more, dying in 1765. The second miracle was the sudden and perfect cure of Maria Pacciarini, of an arthritic rheumatism of long duration; from which she instantaneously and perfectly recovered, by the intercession of Veronica.

Veronica was beatified by Pius VII., in 1804, the Cardinal Duke of York being the reporter of the Cause to the Congregation of Rites. She was solemnly canonized by Gregory XVI., on Trinity Sunday, 26th May, 1839.

“There are often found, in the lives of those who enjoy a reputation for sanctity, certain extraordinary marks, which the profane rashly and foolishly scoff at, as empty and dreamy visions: and the inexperienced multitude, on the other hand, receives as irrefragable proofs of virtue: nor are those wanting, who, misled by a deceitful semblance of prudence and caution, blindly pronounce them the result of artifice and cunning. The prudent man avoids all these extremes; and, whilst he silently admires things beyond the reach of ordinary understandings, inquires into their causes; but, still, not from such effects does he decide upon the virtues of those in whom they are conspicuous, but looks chiefly to the conduct and actions they have produced in them, that from the fruits, as our Divine Master teacheth, the quality of the tree may be known.”89